- While half the village of Saint-Agnes is mourning the death of Amédée, the other half is busy preparing for the confirmation service of all the little boys and girls.
- On Sunday morning, the bishop arrives from Hanover, and Emil rides out with 40 other French boys to meet him.
- As they return with the bishop, they pass by the graveyard, where Amédée's grave is already being dug.
- Before mass, Emil waits outside to see if Marie will show up. She doesn't. Frank rides up alone.
- After taking his seat in Amédée's empty row, the children start to come in for their confirmation. But Emil's mind quickly turns to Marie. He begins to wonder whether something is wrong with her, whether she's sick or has had a fight with Frank.
- As he listens to the music, though, he starts to feel released from his worry. He has an epiphany: he realizes that good is stronger than evil, that the world is a good place. He envisions "a kind of rapture," in which love is possible without sin (4.6.6).
- He decides that he can't really covet Frank's wife, because Marie never was Frank's true wife. He doesn't have Marie; he never found that rapture with her that's above and beyond sin. Plus, if he had ever found it with it, Frank definitely would have "destroyed" it.
- But, the narrator comments dryly, Emil doesn't realize that he's not the only person who's ever had this thought, nor the only man who's ever had such an "equivocal revelation" while listening to some good music. In other words: who're you kidding, Emil? You're just looking for a loophole in God's law.
- The confirmation comes after the mass, and all the parents and family members gather around the newly confirmed kids. Everyone goes his or her separate way, and Emil hears a few songs performed for the bishop.
- During one of the songs, Emil slips away. He mounts his horse, and "at the height of excitement," in which death always seems "very near," he rides off (4.6.9).
- He rides past Amédée's grave, and feels nothing; "ecstasy has no fear of death," the narrator comments.
- Just when he's passed the graveyard, Emil realizes where he's going: to say goodbye to Marie.
- As he rides, he seems to be flying. Everywhere around him is the smell of wheat.
- Emil arrives at the Shabata house and ties his horse in the stable. He searches in the house for Marie but doesn't find her.
- He heads into the orchard. He passes between the cherry trees and heads to the wheat fields.
- Emil sees her lying down under the white mulberry tree, asleep. It has been, the narrator tells us, the first day of her new life, in which she hopes to live forever with her dream of "perfect love" (4.6.11).
- Emil throws himself down beside her and takes her in his arms.
- As she wakes up, she hides her face against him, telling him that she has been dreaming about this, and not to take her dream away.